Tainted Blood

30

Around 9 a.m. the following day the forensic and CID teams gathered at Holberg’s house. There was hardly a glimpse of daylight even at that time in the morning. The sky was gloomy and it was still raining. The radio had said the rain in Reykjavik was approaching the record of October 1926.

The sewage pipe had been cleaned and there was nothing left alive in the foundations. The hole in the base plate had been widened so that two men could go down through it at once. The owners of the flats above were standing in a group outside the basement door. They had ordered a plumber to mend the pipe and were waiting to call him in as soon as the police gave permission.

It soon emerged that the hollow area around the sewage pipe was relatively small. It measured about three square yards and was contained because the ground hadn’t sunk away from the base plate everywhere. The pipe had broken in the same place as before. The old repair was visible and there was a different kind of gravel underneath the pipe from that around it. The forensic technicians discussed whether to widen the hole even further, dig up the gravel from the foundations and empty it out until they could see everywhere under the base plate. After some argument they decided that the plate might break if what was under it was removed completely, so they opted for a safer and more technically advanced method, drilling holes through the floor here and there and putting a miniature camera down into the foundations.

Sigurdur Oli watched when they started drilling holes into the floor and then set up two monitors that were connected to the two cameras that forensics were using. The cameras were little more than pipes with a light on the front which were slipped into the holes and could be moved by remote control. Holes were drilled in the floor where it was thought to be hollow underneath, they slipped the cameras inside and switched on the two monitors. The picture came out in black-and-white and seemed of very poor quality to Sigurdur Oli, who owned a German television set costing half a million crowns.

Erlendur arrived at the basement just as they were starting to probe with the cameras and shortly afterwards Elinborg turned up. Sigurdur Oli noticed Erlendur had shaved and was wearing clean clothes which looked almost as though they’d been ironed.

“Anything happening?” Erlendur asked and lit a cigarette, to Sigurdur Oli’s chagrin.

“They’re going to do a camera probe,” Sigurdur Oli said. “We can watch it on the screen.”

“Nothing in the sewage?” Erlendur said, sucking down the smoke.

“Bugs and rats, nothing else.”

“Filthy stench down here,” Elinborg said and took out a perfumed handkerchief that she carried in her handbag. Erlendur offered her a cigarette, but she declined.

“Holberg could have used the hole the plumber made to put Gretar under the floor,” Erlendur said. “He would have seen it was hollow under the base plate and could have moved the gravel around once he’d put Gretar wherever he wanted.”

They gathered around the screen but couldn’t make out very much of what they saw. A little glow of light moved back and forth, up and down and to the sides. Sometimes they thought they could see the outline of the base plate and sometimes they appeared to see gravel. The ground had subsided to varying degrees. In some places it was right up to the plate, but elsewhere there was a gap of up to three feet.

They stood for a good while watching the cameras. It was noisy in the basement because the forensic team was continually drilling new holes and Erlendur soon lost his patience and walked out. Elinborg quickly followed him and then Sigurdur Oli. They all got into Erlendur’s car. He had told them the previous evening why he suddenly left for Keflavik, but they hadn’t had the opportunity to discuss it any further.

“Of course it fits in with the message that was left behind in Nordurmyri. And if the man Elin saw in Keflavik looks so much like Holberg, that fits in with the theory about his second child.”

“Holberg may not have had a son after the rape,” Sigurdur Oli said. “We’ve got no evidence as such to support that, except that Ellidi knew about another woman. That’s all there is. Besides which, Ellidi’s a moron.”

“No-one we’ve talked to who knew Holberg has mentioned he had a son,” Elinborg said.

“No-one we’ve talked to knew Holberg in the first place,” Sigurdur Oli said. “That’s the point. He was a loner, socialised with a few workmates, down-loaded porn from the Internet, went around with jerks like Ellidi and Gretar. No-one knows anything about the guy.”

“What I’m wondering is this,” Erlendur said. “If Holberg’s son does exist, how does he know about Elin, Audur’s aunt? Doesn’t that mean he must also know about Audur, his sister? If he knows about Elin, I presume he knows about Kolbrun and the rape as well, and I can’t work out how. There haven’t been any details about the investigation in the media. Where would he get his information from?”

“Couldn’t he have got this out of Holberg before he bumped him off?” Sigurdur Oli said. “Isn’t that likely?”

“Maybe he tortured him to make him confess,” Elinborg said.

“First of all, we don’t know whether this man even exists,” Erlendur said. “Elin was very emotional when she saw him. Even assuming he is real, we don’t have any idea if he killed Holberg. Nor whether he even knew of his father’s existence, having been born under those circumstances, after a rape. Ellidi said there was a woman before Kolbrun who got the same treatment, maybe worse. If she got pregnant by it, I doubt that the mother would have been too eager to name the father. She didn’t notify the police about what happened. We don’t have anything about Holberg’s other rapes in our files. We still have to find this woman, if she exists…”

“And we’re smashing up the foundations of a house to look for a man who probably has nothing to do with the case,” Sigurdur Oli said.

“Maybe Gretar isn’t under the foundations here,” Elinborg said.

“How come?” Erlendur said.

“Maybe he’s still alive, you mean?” Sigurdur Oli said.

“He knew all about Holberg, I’d imagine,” Elinborg said. “He knew about the daughter, other-wise he wouldn’t have taken a photograph of her grave. He definitely knew how she came into the world. If Holberg had another child, a son, he would have known about him too.”

Erlendur and Sigurdur Oli looked at her with growing interest.

“Maybe Gretar’s still with us,” she continued, “and in touch with the son. That’s one explanation for how the son could know about Elin and Audur.”

“But Gretar went missing a good 25 years ago and hasn’t been heard of since,” Sigurdur Oli said.

“Just because he went missing doesn’t necessarily mean he’s dead,” Elinborg said.

“So that…” Erlendur began, but Elinborg interrupted him.

“I don’t think we can rule him out. Why not allow for the possibility that Gretar is still alive? No body was ever found. He could have left the country. It could have been enough for him to move to the countryside. No-one gave a damn. No-one missed him.”

“I don’t remember any instance of that,” Erlendur said.

“Of what?” Sigurdur Oli asked.

“A missing person returning a whole generation later. When people disappear in Iceland it’s always for good. No-one ever comes back after an absence of more than 25 years. Never.”